Sam Raimi Ditches Jack Ryan for Spider-Man

So did I tell ya this was gonna happen, or did I tell ya this was gonna happen? Yeah, I told ya this was gonna happen. Mind you, not that the idea of Sam Raimi directing a Jack Ryan reboot is up there with an “Evil Dead 4″ movie, but it would have been interesting to see what a genre fella like Raimi could do with a character like uptight CIA guy Jack Ryan. Now we’ll never know, because Raimi has confirmed that, because of his new commitment to making “Spider-Man 4″ and “Spider-Man 5″, he won’t have time to re-invent Ryan and company.

Raimi revealed to us during the chat that he’d be willing to shoot “Spider-Man 4” and “Spider-Man 5” at the same time, and also spoke about the futures of Kirsten Dunst and The Lizard. And, as he explained, that doesn’t leave him any time to reboot Tom Clancy’s tale of America’s top CIA operative.

“I love Tom Clancy, and I hope they’d keep me in mind,” Raimi shrugged, admitting that he couldn’t realistically make a Jack Ryan movie for half a decade or more. “But because I’m committed to ‘Spider-Man and making that picture, I think it’s going to knock me out of the running for the Jack Ryan picture.”

Now again, I’m not saying that a Jack Ryan reboot at the hands of Raimi is something I’m dying to see, but it does re-enforce my belief that by re-committing himself to two more Spidey movies, Raimi has effectively killed whatever gems he might have come up with in the intervening years. I wouldn’t harp on it so much if I wasn’t such a fan of the man’s creativity, and I just don’t see any creativity left in returning to Spider-Man.

But maybe I’m wrong and he’ll blow me away with two more Spidey movies. Then again, maybe “Spider-Man 3″ didn’t suck as much as I thought it did. Right?